


Queen of Peace

by AraceliL



Series: Lungs [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Also a good amount of language, Angst, Budding Love, Drinking, EDI shows up for a second, F/M, Friendship, Garrus/Shepard friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Love me sexy lizard man, Okay maybe lots of fluff, Pre-Suicide Mission, Romance, Romantic Friendship, Some Fluff, drunk shepard is fun shepard, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 02:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5147531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraceliL/pseuds/AraceliL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard has had a little to drink.<br/>Okay, maybe a lot to drink.<br/>It's not easy sacrificing your identity to be who everybody needs you to be, but luckily, a certain assassin doesn't need her to be anyone but herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queen of Peace

    Commander Shepard was the Queen of Peace, and she fucking hated it.

    Blue eyes glazed over as rough hands ran smoothly through the sheets curled around her, fingers wrapped desperately in a fist as she brought the bottle to her lips once more.

    _I didn’t ask for this, not once_ , she thought, alcohol of some wise alien species pouring down her throat like a herd of some other wise alien species. _I didn’t ask to be the one to fight._

    She was tired. Her bed hugged her prone form like the ocean, various empty bottles scattered around like great white sharks, intimidating and fearsome in their ability to make her remember the responsibilities she was shirking. She was a sinking ship in the great sea that was her bed, and she accepted this with a wry smirk and another toss of alcohol.

    “Commander,” EDI began, almost sounding embarrassed to be seeing said Commander in this state, but perhaps that was just Shepard’s drunkenness. “The Illusive Man wishes to speak with you in the debriefing room.”

    “Yeah, tell him to fuck off,” Shepard slurred, fully aware that EDI would do no such thing. “It’s like, midnight thirty.”

    “It is twelve forty-six, Commander,” the AI corrected smoothly, seeming to wait with patience as Shepard grumbled under her breath. “But the Illusive Man says it is urgent.”

    Great. Making it down a few levels while not tripping over her own two feet in front of the ship. Her saving grace was that during the ship’s night cycle, there was only a skeleton crew, but it didn’t make her feel much better. At least Tali wouldn’t be awake to revel in her drunken stumbling like she usually did. Maybe if she hadn’t gone and decided to get wasted in the privacy of her own cabin and the intimacy of her own tears and pity she wouldn’t be in this mess.

    Instead of answering, she pulled herself up from her stomach, black hair matted to the side of her face from where she passed out between bottles, and dragged her legs until they took her to the door. There, she realized she wasn’t wearing pants, and managed to grab a pair of regulation sweats that she figured wouldn’t be too offensive to her well-dressed ‘boss’. Well, she supposed, if he did find them offensive, she would just mention that their shared goal had never mentioned her choice in attire. For some reason, she doubted the Collectors would really mind, either way.

    The elevator ride jostled her just enough to sober up a bit, and she belatedly tried to fix her hair into professional looking bun as she hurried through the armory to reach the debriefing room. Light snoring reminded her that Jacob had refused a bed in the crew’s quarters, and she took a second to lighten her steps to avoid waking him. Restful sleep was hard to come by.

 

* * *

 

    The debriefing would have managed to sober her immediately, had she been physically able. As it was, her mind seemed to clear completely at the news of the IFF system, and in her confusion, her drunk tongue, her truthful tongue, blurted words like “Is this going to work? What if I fail?”

    Her benefactor, for the most part, didn’t seem anxious that his ‘investment’ was drunk on worry and insecurity (and no small amount of spiced rum, clearly). If anything, he simply seemed tired. His platitudes, however, weren’t sympathetic, or even comforting; he chose his words like one would quiet a child who was annoying them. Embarrassment flooded fresh through her, and quickly she dismissed herself, his words ringing in her ears, so, so loud against the quiet hum of her ship.

    _You are a symbol. If you fail now, we all fail. We rest on your shoulders._

    She was the fucking Queen of Peace, and she had never asked to be.

    Time for another bottle of alcohol.

    Everything she tried to be, tried to stand for, seemed to dissolve into doubts, magnified by the harsh lens of insecurity. She hadn’t asked to be on Eden Prime, where she had activated that damn beacon. She hadn’t asked to be the only one to believe the Reapers were the real threat. She hadn’t asked to chose on Virmire, to die over Alchera and to be rebuilt on some remote station, every inch of her body ( _meat and tubes_ ) reworked and rewired and replaced. Kelly, in her omniscient way, had been right to warn Shepard about demanding the details from Miranda, and Miranda, to her credit, had been right to keep said details far away from the Commander. They all knew she couldn’t handle it. _Look at yourself, you can barely handle this!_

_Who am I anymore?_

    She couldn’t control it. The tears came again, this time against the elevator wall as her rebuilt ribs shook, as her woven skin (fake skin, new skin) pressed against the cool metal. She couldn’t control it, couldn’t control, control, _control…_

    Her mother had once told her to focus on what she could control, and use it to her advantage. The Reapers were an unknowable, uncontrollable variable; fighting them was an uncontrollable consequence of that fateful day on Eden Prime; swearing her life to stop them was an uncontrollable mark of her morality; dying had been an uncontrollable situation…

    _Focus, Zelda._

    She could focus on her slippered feet in front of her. One step after another. Always one step after another.

    Garrus had once told her that it was all she could do to keep moving forward, as she had sighed quietly in his bony lap. Before he had returned to her an equal, before she had stared in awe at the man that had risen from the ashes, she had never allowed him to see her as she was, as Zelda, not as Commander Shepard, first human Spectre. She knew how he idolized her position, and while a part of her wanted to warn him, growing up the oldest child had made her pause. This was just another role to play. Was it so bad to let him romanticize? He would learn, one way or another, she was sure.

    Meeting him on Omega had filled her with a heart-aching sorrow for not telling him sooner.

    He was more than an equal, now -- he was her best friend. Sometimes, she wondered if he was more suited for this position than she was; after all, he had led a team longer than she had. Just because her enemy was more famous, and her warnings louder, didn’t mean he hadn’t accomplished more.

    “But that point is moot, isn’t it?” she mumbled to herself, still watching her feet on the cold metal floor, letting them carry her to the cupboard that had become her precious safe. Almost unconsciously she removed the top and took a swig, eyes darting to the main battery where she knew Garrus would be sleeping.

    _“You know I couldn’t do this without you, Garrus.” Her words held much more weight when they slipped over her heavy tongue, and she felt him still for a moment as they washed over him._

_“Sure you could. Not as stylishly, of course.” He gave her a lifeline in his humor, a gentle reminder of the words she knew he meant._ On your six. I’m with you, regardless.

    _She couldn’t remember exactly how they had gone from mentor and pupil to best friends and partners, but she didn’t mind. She also couldn’t remember how they had ended up together at 3 o’clock in the morning, sprawled against the wall of the forward battery, her head on a pillow in his lap (how did turians even mate with all these freaking bones?), his three-fingered hand (so alien, so familiar, so different, so comforting) gently trailing along her scalp._

_“Do you think we can do it?”_

_She heard the warmth in his subvocals, in the rumble vibrating through her skull where it was pressed against his hard, thin waist. “As long as we have you, yes.”_

    It wouldn’t be fair of her now to wake up him, to drag him into more of her bullshit, to make him deal with her strung-out ramblings. Shouldn’t make him do anything. Shouldn’t make any of her crew do anything, least of all see their commander ( _you’re a symbol_ ) as anything less than a paragon of authority, control, and hope. That’s what she was.

    Commander. Spectre. Battlemaster. Hero of the Battle of the Citadel. Survivor of Akuze. Savior. Queen of Peace.

    These were all the things she would now forever be.

    _Focus, Zelda. Things you can change._

    Well, for one, she could get a glass of water and stop drinking like a damn alcoholic. For two, she could stop crying ( _“Why waste your energy, Battlemaster? You squishy things are too emotional,” Grunt had declared upon helping her back to the shuttle with a broken shin, but she saw how gentle he was when lifting her into the ship_ ). For three, she could grab a snack to replace some of the weight she was rapidly losing from stress, and hopefully help curb her inevitable hangover. Doubtful, but it was worth a shot, so she dried her eyes on the back of her hand, released her hair from its strict bun, and put away the curvy bottle.

    Settling against the countertop with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (the butter knife had almost bested her in her drunken state), she ate quietly, head still buzzing, but her cybernetics seemed to be responding appreciatively to the sustenance. The gentle hum of the ship quieted her thoughts, and she focused on her breathing as she ate, as that therapist after Akuze had taught her. Bite. Breathe. Swallow.

    She was so focused, she didn’t hear the door to life support make its usual click as it opened, and even had she been focused she wouldn’t have been able to hear Thane as he rounded the corner to the mess.

    “Commander.”

    She looked up, mid-chew, and Thane watched with amusement as her high cheeks flushed with the embarrassment of being caught. A smidge of purple was smeared along the corner of her mouth, coral against plum, and his calm countenance broke with a small smile as she responded hastily, “Krios! Hey.”

    He continued toward her, silent, making everything seem louder, and Shepard duly wondered if her chewing was as loud to him as it was to her. She wasn’t sure what to say, still -- the assassin was a puzzle, silence, stillness, and mystery shrouded in a dangerous, confident exterior -- and while she was slowly peeling away more and more of that inescapable stoicism, he didn’t know nearly as much about her as she knew about him. Catching her here, at one o’clock in the morning, half-drunk with grape jelly on her mouth, was the equivalent of watching her strip.

    Which, if Garrus had anything to say about that (and he did, when post-mission talks left them debating as they changed), was as ungainly and uncomfortable to watch as her dancing was.

    Thane, for his part, had seen many humans drunk, but was more than a little surprised to see it coming from his commander. He had never been too fond of the activity (he reasoned that was the result of very little free time), and had only ever really thought of it as a useful opportunity to gather information. A drunk tongue was a truthful tongue. Still, it was clear even to his unaccustomed eyes that Shepard ( _no, his commander_ ) was hardly drinking to have a good time.

Red-ringed eyes watched warily above a fake smile, curious black tracks echoing her dark eyelashes on the swollen skin. A trembling finger moved from the food in her hands to her lips, wiping the purple smudge with her thumb, and ocean-blue eyes gave a challenging glance at him as she sucked it off the digit.

He tried not to watch too long as her quick pink tongue darted out to remove any traces, and settled for reaching behind her to pluck a glass from the cabinet.

There was a silence as they both contemplated what to say, both fully aware of how drunk she was, of how strange the situation was. Zelda stared firmly at the metal ahead of her, the now-dark windows of the medbay staring back, avoiding with all her might the silent-as-wind assassin beside her. If anything, that made it worse, as she listened to him fill the glass with water, arm brushing hers and leaving it stinging like a livewire.

Guilt bubbled within her again, a simmering pot just waiting to be jolted. He didn’t presume anything, it seemed, and she really should move over to give him more room, for socially acceptable reasons, but her hazy mind longed for the warmth he projected, for the weird electricity she felt in his presence, so she refused to move. He seemed undisturbed by her in turn, which made the guilt crawl into her throat and pull her trachea shut.

“I owe you an explanation,” she said finally, the words breaking out in a choked confession. There was no fanfare, no pretense.

“You owe me nothing, Commander,” Thane said quietly from her side, now watching the windows with her.

That only made her feel worse, as his voice, lowered to an almost-whisper, seemed to caress along her neck and slipped into her ears, into her head. That voice, so mysterious, a voice that for many had been the last thing they had ever heard, had become a lifeline in firefights, a beacon of control and safety in a sea of bullets and biotics. Without realizing it, she had integrated Thane into her desperate need for peace, trying to siphon something, anything, from his eternal serenity.

“Zelda.” She let her voice lower to his level, and the gesture did not go unnoticed by him. “You can call me Zelda, or just Shepard.”

“As you wish,” was his reply, brief, but his mind spun with a million questions he would never voice. While she had asked much about him, his species, his religion, his customs, she had never demanded anything personal from him, and he was determined to do the same in return.

It seemed she was thinking along the same lines. “You’ve never asked anything of me, Thane, while I pester you with questions. Why?”

He turned to look at her then, observing her short frame in loose blue pants and some thin cotton shirt with words he didn’t recognize along the breast. Dark hair, looking so soft as it gently cupped the shell of her ear. Eyes focused intently, professionally, on the walls ahead of them, as though she wasn’t wasted as a krogan after his first kill. He longed to reach out, to offer comfort for the burdens she shouldered with a hand on her arm, to feel the miniscule hairs there, to touch the silky expanse of her cheeks. What did her skin feel like? He had felt humans before (under much different circumstances, of course) but somehow, it seemed almost reverent to touch her, and was definitely off limits by social standards. So he settled by answering her as truthfully as he could, as was his general mantra when speaking to her.

“You are a very private person, Shepard. I would never wish to intrude upon your privacy unless you granted me permission.”

“So you’re saying you are interested?” There was that twinkle in her eye, that playful lit to her voice despite her bloodshot eyes and raspy tone, that he found so...intriguing. It brought a small smile to his face.

Shepard watched with satisfaction as it spread across those plump lips, feeling a familiar ease come back into their conversation. She had become accustomed to drawing him out, and had learned to recognize his hidden humor, which seemed to be an effort to mask something she refused to pry into. In her bid for control, she had taken to visiting his room more often, hoping to glean something from his reassuring presence. While nothing would be a magic cure, their talks came pretty damn close, though she doubted he realized it.

“I will not be so tasteless as to admit I am burning with curiosity, but yes, I might have spared a passing thought.” She was shocked out of her reverie by his teasing, and turned to meet his eyes -- onyx, obsidian, other adjectives that still paled in comparison to how damn deep they seemed.

“Thane Krios, you wound me.” She could almost feel her cybernetics sobering her, and it forced her to remember her failure of letting him see her in such a state. Her mind cleared slightly, and she turned away.

“But I do owe you an apology,” she said, voice quiet again. “Commanding Officers are not supposed to get piss-drunk, and especially not in front of their crew.”

She heard an almost silent rumble from his throat, in what she had come to recognize as a chuckle. “It is unorthodox, Shepard, but I would hardly say you owe me an apology.”

_He doesn’t get it._ “I’m a symbol, Thane. An ideal. I can’t break that.” She could feel herself treading into dangerous, drunken-confession territory, but goddamn it she was this far already, why not go all the way? “Heroes of the Battle of the Citadel don’t get wasted. Spectres don’t lose it. Battlemasters don’t doubt themselves. _Commander Shepard doesn’t fucking break!_ ”

He was silent at her outburst, listening as her breathing returned to normal. Her food lay forgotten on the counter, hands gripping the underside of the metal till her knuckles shone white. He watched, waiting, as her veins moved angrily under sandy skin, but as a tear rolled down her cheek, he overcame his inhibitions and moved.

His green hand (so alien, so comforting) was on her hand, fingers moving gently, hesitatingly up and down in reassuring strokes. Shepard stilled initially, eyes drawn to the sight of green on beige, as though staring would help her comprehend it. She shouldn’t be so dumbstruck, she knew; he was simply offering comfort, but even that action was so foreign. She had barely been touched since she had...woken up, and almost never like this. Garrus had been the last to show her any type of physical reassurance, and even then, Garrus had known her through what felt like multiple lifetimes (or, for her, what was). And from Thane?

Her hand felt warm, so fragile underneath his, electricity seemingly jumping between the gaps where his hand wasn’t flush to hers. An assassin’s fingertips, calloused, cold killers, brushing warmth, serenity, peace into hers. A _friend’s_ hand holding hers.

Oh god. When was the last time she had ever felt like this?

Thane heard a strangled laugh come from her throat, and moved to pull his hand away, not quite understanding whatever emotion had overtaken her features. But her hand moved underneath his, turning upward, pressing warm palm to warm palm, and slowly, shyly, her so human fingers threaded through his so drell ones, fitting around his fused digits as naturally as though they had done this a million times, not some stolen touch while she was drunk.

He felt his heart move erratically in its rhythm, and felt something deep in his mind stir.

“It is a good thing, then, that you are not simply your titles. You are Zelda Shepard, and that is far beyond enough.”

Human fingers tightened around his drell ones. A protector’s hand holding to a killer’s for strength. He was the wrong one to be comforting her, to be easing her overloaded shoulders, but she intrigued him. Shepard, with her wet sand skin, skin the color of where the tide pulled away, so soft against the rougher texture of his scales. With her deep-sea hair, the color of the abyss, with eyes bluer than the ocean and the sky behind it. Eyes he knew lead people to follow her to hell with their loyalty, their shrewdness, their tenderness. With her prowess of the battlefield, a painter with a pistol and a dancer with biotics: _blue tendrils, blue as her eyes, swirl around her as she transforms into a goddess of war, and we are her reverent priests, killing on her command, on her breath as she turns the ground into a canvas for Amonkira;_ With her soft questions and sincere interest in helping others. Oh, Arashu, he was not worthy of offering himself for consolation, but he would do all he could. What was this woman?

Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at him, searching. What was going on in that unfathomable mind of his? He had no reason to help her, to comfort her, to be looking at her with those beautifully tender eyes. What was she to him? He was everything she longed to be, picturesquely perfect, yet here he was, consoling the woman who was supposed to be his superior! Normally, that thought would have made her feel worse yet again, perhaps cause another round of tears, but instead, she managed to pull her eyes away from his concerned ones and saw their hands intertwined. _How fucking beautiful that things like this exist in a galaxy of Reapers and Collectors. How fucking beautiful that he exists._

She brought her other hand to wipe her eyes, pointedly keeping her hand locked with his. She couldn’t let him leave yet. She needed it too much.

He seemed to understand, in his enigmatic way. Half the time, she was convinced those eyes were actually reading her mind. He inclined his head toward her, but this time, it was him that tightened the grip on her hand. She felt a ripple in her heart’s rhythm as he sought her eyes again.

“Zelda,” he said, voice so low it felt like it was rumbling through her body, “You have never pestered me with your questions, as you put it. I...appreciate the chats we’ve had.”

She smiled sadly, slowly becoming aware of how close they were, closer than they had ever been across the table in life support. His broad shoulder nestled hers gently, arms pressed together to where their hands met on the countertop. His scent was arguably more exhilarating than the alcohol (or because of it, she’d have to check when she was sober...if she got the chance), leather and spice and fresh, wet ground. His scales were brilliantly emerald under the harsh kitchen light, reminding her of a rainforest...Oh right. Answering. “You’ve spent a lot of your life alone, Thane.”

He gave a humorless chuckle, still observing her. A part of her was still unnerved knowing that his memory was perfectly recording this, but a bigger part was warm and tingly at the thought of him thinking of her. “Work fulfilled me...reading. I hardly spoke to anyone outside my family. You’re the first friend I’ve made in ten years.”

While she was honored that he thought of her as a friend, (a glance at his long shimmering green calloused assassin perfect _alien_ fingers wrapped in hers) and very pleased at the progress in their relationship, all she could think about was those beautiful black eyes, looking down at her with such concern, such tenderness, such...hope? God, his scent! Like rain. Was it a drell thing? Was it a Thane thing? What was -- “Friends, huh? That’s a start,” came the words from her mouth. _Shit._

She watched him digest the words carefully, a million more things streaming through her head, intoxicated on the remainder of the rum and his closeness: Sure, she meant what she said, but she never would have said it otherwise; why the _fuck_ had she said that? Such inappropriate timing, what the hell; God, he was going to reject her, this was no time and place, and besides, they were so different, and --

“A start?” he repeated, sounding just as surprised as she felt. “That’s...intriguing.” A smile, bigger than she’d seen yet on that dangerously handsome face, wound across his lips. “I will always be here to talk when you need me.”

With that promise, he gave her hand one last sympathetic squeeze, and exited the room with all the grace and poise she had associated with him from day one.

One breath out. _Well hot damn. That went way better than expected._

Just when she had thought all hope had been stripped away, here had arrived one enigma of an assassin to relight her path. Here was hope.

With her first smile of the week, she finished her snack and returned the her quarters, hand tingling the whole way.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope to make this a series, maybe spanning all of ME2 if I'm really feeling amibitious? Yes, Zelda is purely because The Legend of Zelda was my first great videogame love, but it is actually the name of my Shep. ...Okay well I do have a mShep I named DavidBowie, but he's for being a huge dick. My real playthrough was Zelda (though, actually, she romanced Garrus, and the Thane-mancer was named Athena, but I don't count her because she didn't complete ME1 and the game assumed I had killed Wrex, so she's not real either.) So anyway I love a brotherly Garrus and always like to include him. I hope my dialogue was true to character, I tried very hard! So please leave kudos or a comment if you enjoyed! Thanks!


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